The first thing to say is congratulations to India. By winning the World Cup, you have increased the value of replica India shirts enormously. Here's to a significant price increase with little to no impact on future sales volumes.

I couldn't help but be moved by the crowd's reaction when MS Dhoni hit that six to take the title. The wall of noise proved that sixes are the best thing about cricket - something I've been trying to explain to everyone back at the office for the last six months. I guess you can see all the market research you like, but a moment like that makes the case so much more strongly. Hopefully now my plans to have all boundaries brought in another 10 metres or so will gain some traction with upper management.

Mahela Jayawardene deserves a few words for his performance as well. Without his contribution India might have chased down the Sri Lanka total far more quickly and we could have lost out on a number of ad breaks. If that had happened, the impact on revenue doesn't bear thinking about, so well played, Mahela. It was a great contribution with a very real impact on the bottom line.

I know a lot of people who were heartbroken when Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed. Sachin could have scored his hundredth international hundred in the World Cup final and our marketing department had some really good ideas as to how to leverage that sports event asset. It's a crying shame that those ideas will probably never see the light of day. I think the uncertainty surrounding these sorts of events really needs to be addressed very soon because it's hampering people's ability to do their jobs, which of course has a knock-on effect on revenue. I don't know how people can stand for it.

I think we can all agree that it's been a hugely successful tournament overall, though. We won't know how successful until the third financial quarter, but every forecast I've seen so far has this down as the best tournament ever. Everywhere you looked, there was something to get excited about: brand exposure, cost per ad slot, merchandising - it was wall-to-wall good news. I don't know what I'm going to do with my time now that we aren't getting daily profit bulletins. They were the highlight of my day.

World Cups in India are clearly the way forward, and the good news is that plans are in place for a follow-up tournament in May or June of this year. The only stumbling block at the moment is the format. Originally we were going to go with the same one as this tournament, but it doesn't pay to rest on your laurels. One suggestion that has gone down well is that instead of having a large number of teams competing for the title, we instead have just the finalists and have them play all of the matches.

Every match a final - imagine that. It would be like Christmas every day (which is something else I'm currently pushing for, incidentally). Factor in the increased number of sixes in each game and it's clear that what we have on our hands is nothing less than the world's premier sporting entertainment product. Well done, India, and everyone involved.

Going by your Logic why have even 10 teams? Bangladesh & Zimbabwe aren't going to win the World Cup anyways. You can pretty well reduce it to 8. If WI continue the current form you can cut it to 7 also.

And again going by your logic even India should have been eliminated after the disastrous 1979 WC where they lost every match they played including against the then minnows Sri Lanka. Imagine the state of Cricket had you eliminated India after 1979.. Cricket would have been extinct by now...

Posted by
dummy4fb
on (April 6, 2011, 1:36 GMT)

I agree with the person who called the article "staggeringly unfunny". Had the author been on a stage, this is the part where he would get booed by the audience.

Posted by
yogikanna
on (April 5, 2011, 23:44 GMT)

Although some of the knockout matches and few of the league matches were quite electrifying, in my humble opinion (IMHO) this was one of the most boring world cup ever!! I mean, come on.....what is the point of having 42 freakin league matches when you know that the top 8 test playing nations are going to make it to the quarterfinals stage anyways (barring one or two possible upsets, which did not happen anyway). Worst planned worldcup ever!

@Alexk400. I am not against your comments but looks like you are always against Sachin. Dhoni was, is and will be definitely giving chances to young players regardless of Sachin playing or not. Sachin is second highest runs scorer in this WC. He also scored 120, 53 and 85 against ENG, AUS and Pak respectively which were big and crucial matches for India. If we expect him to play in all matches then we don't need so many batsmen for India. There is one stupid sentiment started recently "Sachin century is badluck to India" which proved for ENG match (http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/433568.html). May be that is the reason why he was not allowed to make century in Final. By the way Sachin was playing only for specific series where he could do justice.

Posted by
dummy4fb
on (April 5, 2011, 15:00 GMT)

This is what you get when people do not follow all your articles :)
As for the final six, you will have to admit, that will be replayed thousands of times in the future.

Smith and Guptill light up SydneyFan Following: Two memorable centuries, including the highest individual score at the ground, plenty of boundaries and a decent atmosphere at the SCG's first international of the home summer